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More expansive doesn't necessarily mean better. It's an old adage, but it's also the most accurate way to describe my thoughts after investing many hours with The Outer Worlds 2. Developer Obsidian added more of each element to the next installment to its 2019's futuristic adventure — increased comedy, enemies, arms, attributes, and places, all the essentials in such adventures. And it functions superbly — initially. But the load of all those ambitious ideas makes the game wobble as the game progresses.

A Powerful First Impression

The Outer Worlds 2 makes a strong first impression. You are part of the Terran Directorate, a do-gooder institution dedicated to restraining unscrupulous regimes and businesses. After some major drama, you wind up in the Arcadia region, a settlement fractured by war between Auntie's Option (the outcome of a merger between the previous title's two major companies), the Protectorate (collectivism pushed to its worst logical conclusion), and the Ascendant Brotherhood (reminiscent of the Church, but with mathematics rather than Jesus). There are also a number of rifts tearing holes in space and time, but currently, you urgently require get to a relay station for critical messaging purposes. The problem is that it's in the middle of a combat area, and you need to find a way to get there.

Similar to the first game, Outer Worlds 2 is a first-person role-playing game with an main narrative and many secondary tasks distributed across different planets or regions (large spaces with a much to discover, but not sandbox).

The opening region and the task of reaching that comms station are spectacular. You've got some goofy encounters, of course, like one that includes a rancher who has given excessive sugary treats to their preferred crab. Most lead you to something useful, though — an surprising alternative route or some new bit of intel that might provide an alternate route onward.

Unforgettable Moments and Overlooked Opportunities

In one notable incident, you can come across a Guardian defector near the overpass who's about to be killed. No quest is tied to it, and the only way to locate it is by investigating and listening to the background conversation. If you're fast and alert enough not to let him get defeated, you can save him (and then protect his deserter lover from getting slain by beasts in their refuge later), but more pertinent to the task at hand is a power line hidden in the undergrowth close by. If you track it, you'll locate a hidden entrance to the communication hub. There's another entrance to the station's drainage system tucked away in a cave that you may or may not notice depending on when you follow a specific companion quest. You can encounter an simple to miss person who's essential to rescuing a person much later. (And there's a soft toy who implicitly sways a team of fighters to join your cause, if you're nice enough to protect it from a minefield.) This opening chapter is rich and engaging, and it feels like it's full of rich storytelling potential that rewards you for your exploration.

Fading Hopes

Outer Worlds 2 doesn't fulfill those early hopes again. The second main area is organized like a map in the initial title or Avowed — a large region scattered with notable locations and side quests. They're all thematically relevant to the conflict between Auntie's Selection and the Ascendant Order, but they're also mini-narratives separated from the main story plot-wise and location-wise. Don't look for any environmental clues guiding you toward alternative options like in the first zone.

In spite of compelling you to choose some difficult choices, what you do in this area's optional missions doesn't matter. Like, it truly has no effect, to the extent that whether you enable war crimes or lead a group of refugees to their death results in nothing but a casual remark or two of dialogue. A game doesn't need to let every quest impact the narrative in some major, impactful way, but if you're making me choose a faction and pretending like my choice counts, I don't think it's irrational to expect something additional when it's finished. When the game's already shown that it has greater potential, anything less seems like a compromise. You get expanded elements like Obsidian promised, but at the price of depth.

Ambitious Plans and Absent Drama

The game's intermediate phase tries something similar to the main setup from the initial world, but with clearly diminished panache. The concept is a daring one: an interconnected mission that spans multiple worlds and motivates you to solicit support from various groups if you want a smoother path toward your objective. In addition to the repeated framework being a little tiresome, it's also absent the drama that this kind of scenario should have. It's a "bargain with evil" moment. There should be hard concessions. Your connection with each alliance should count beyond making them like you by doing new tasks for them. All this is lacking, because you can merely power through on your own and achieve the goal anyway. The game even takes pains to hand you means of achieving this, indicating alternate routes as additional aims and having allies inform you where to go.

It's a byproduct of a broader issue in Outer Worlds 2: the anxiety of allowing you to regret with your decisions. It often overcompensates out of its way to make sure not only that there's an alternate route in many situations, but that you are aware of it. Secured areas almost always have multiple entry methods marked, or nothing valuable within if they fail to. If you {can't